Yes, this
film is supposed to launch the Dark Universe universe ... Cos every
studio has to have its own universe now, thanks to the success of Marvel.
Maybe that’s why the story becomes so convoluted.That, and the fact that no fewer than six people
are credited with writing it (which means that far more were likely involved).

Basically,
Cruise plays a mercenary type out in Iraq, who calls in an airstrike and
unearths the tomb of Ahmanet.She
(for, surprisingly, this mummy is a she) isn’t as dead as several millennia
underground would suggest, and curses Cruise.He dies, but that doesn’t stop him causing all kinds of trouble for
her.He is recruited by The Prodigium, a
group of ghost busters overseen by Dr. Jekyll (yes, that one) - here played by
Russell Crowe.

No, Tom, we don't know what the hell's going on, either.

No-matter how crazy things get, Cruise is never less than
100% committed and deadly serious; while Crowe is clearly having a ball taking
the mick out of himself and the whole silly affair.

Despite
being American through-and-through, this film has a very English feel, and
reminds me more of Hammer horrors than the Universal films it's following on
from. There's also a splash of American Werewolf (1981) and a dash
of Lifeforce (1985). Yeah, I know.

Tommy gets
to do some running too (I think he has that written into his contracts),
Russell Crowe gets to flounce around as a camp Henry Jekyll and then chew the
furniture as evil Eddie Hyde, and London fills up with the medieval
dead. Also, to her credit, Sofia Boutella makes much more of her role as
Ahmanet than Cara Delevingne or Oscar Isaac got to do with their versions of,
essentially, the same villain in last year’s Suicide Squad and X-Men
Apocalypse.

It's big and
it's daft and I have not the first clue what they thought they were
doing. But it's fun watching them find out. The Mummy is a
proper old-fashioned popcorn movie. Put your brain in neutral and enjoy
the ride.